Today the Sea Lion made her way into a tributary of the Snake River. We would explore the Palouse River and take a closer look at the Great Columbia River Basalt flows that have covered this landscape. It’s hard to imagine not only the great flows of basalt oozing their way across much of Washington, Oregon and Idaho, but to have that catastrophic event followed by the Bretz floods? We have to let our imaginations go back in geologic time some twelve to fifteen thousand years. The rolling hills that make up the Palouse River and the surrounding countryside of the Snake River were quiet until one fateful day when an intense roar could be heard coming from the northeast. Swirling dust clouds spread across the northern horizon. Then winds at hurricane-force speeds followed by a wall of water more than 100 feet high and 8 miles across surged across this landscape, leaving in its wake destruction and a carved beauty that would take thousands of years to understand and appreciate.
The Sea Lion and her guests continued following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark down the Snake River. We were passing nearly to the day of the Corp of Discovery's passage some 198 years ago. We took a few moments to watch as wall after wall of Columnar Basalt passed by the Sea Lion. We marveled at not only the path of human history we followed but also, the enormous geologic and natural history that was cut away like a surgeon with a scalpel, laying open fifteen million years of geologic history for our examination! The great floodwaters of glacial Lake Missoula had laid open the land over and over and over, changing paths of rivers and exposing ancient Basalt flows. We saw the beauty and wondered at the natural power, just as Lewis and Clark had reported in the their journals a few short years ago.
